Rafil Elyas: Malaise in Space – Angkasawan Pt II

Whilst I wish our space flight participant a safe return home, I am shamed by the sheer magnitude of financial waste and stupidity of all parties involved in our Angkasawan program.

I thought I’d just leave it at one satirical post (refer to pt. I) but the level of idiocy and damage it has done to this country’s credibility in the field of science and technology has infuriated me. I can’t laugh about it anymore.

101007 is when the entire planet snickers (fortunately, in past space flight participants have opened the door for shooting useless personel into space) at this country, and more specifically the Malay peoples. Malay Muslims (true believers or IC ones) have enough trouble casting off stereotypes, the last thing we need is something this big and stupid.

For those Star Trek fans, we are now officially Pakleds.
They could have mitigated some of the idiocy by coming to terms that the guy is just a space tourist and try to “justify” the “scientific” work that he was supposed to execute. Have you been keeping track of what “experiments” he’s supposed to execute? There’s suddenly an influx of “projects” and “experiments” the guy is supposed to be running on the ISS.

Sorry, but there are viewers who practice some form or other of advanced science/technology AND keep abreast of ISS experiments, and know when you’re bullshitting.

Here’s for example:

1) Gyroscopic and fluid mechanics. This was flooded into the papers last year as a statement from the local space agency. This looks like outright PR spin after getting brutally panned by the BBC, local blogs and just about everyone this planet for stating that our space flight participant would be playing gasing and doing something stupid involving teh tarik. Yes, we are aware of this, Dr Mazlan.

2) Protein crystalization for a potential HIV vaccine. They called a molecular biologist to speak about this. Some university department head. She mentioned that it was necessary to go to space to study the effects of cosmic radiation on protein crystalization. Never mind the fact that

i) there been experiments on earth using various radiation sources and accelerators.
ii) The experimentation bays are in shield cladded modules.

Yes, there may be cosmic rays..but because of the efforts to mitigate them, one wouldn’t design an experiment in the ISS to address this issue. THERE ARE PROTEIN CRYSTALIZATION AND FOLDING EXPERIMENTS RUN IN THE ISS… but they are conducted there to study the mechanisms in MICROGRAVITY.

3) In addition to that, Dr Mazlan said Dr Muszaphar would conduct experiments on tropical disease microbes for Malaysia, eyesight and muscles research for Europe Space Agency. For the Japanese Space Agency, he will carry out tests on the effects of radiation in space. “The space project is not a one-off thing. We have solid long term planning for the space programme.”

OK, lets count kids. Assuming there were “gyro” and “fluid mechanics” experiments, that’s SIX experiments the guy is supposed to do. Now, I don’t know how many of you have slogged it out in a earthbound bio/chem/physics lab to do experiments or anything that requires skill, discipline and repeatability -based on my distribution list.. probably only Seow and Philip. There’s no way this guy’s going to set up, execute, monitor, collect data, process and post process SIX experiments. He’s there for TEN DAYS. This guy isn’t even a payload specialist!

Also:

a) Never allow Badawi, Najib or the guy who was heading Malaysia’s “space program” to speak freely on technical subjects or anything that would require intelligence. They should have been given prepared text and scripts. The pet American asked “when is the next space mission”, Badawi answers “when we purchase more Sukhoi jets”.

Najib said the country had gone into a new dimension as Malaysia showed progress to be on par with other developed nations. Exactly what the heck sort of progress did we make other than pay for the Russians to physically train one man and add him as payload?

b) Not bothered to hype the Dataran Merdeka “festivities” because they didn’t even bother to to make sure the video screen was functional on such a “momentus” occasion.

Seriously, if you’d just claimed to have a Space Flight Participant or Space Tourist in the first place, that would have been fine. We’ve accepted Dennis Tito and the rich chick from the middle east.

Instead you assume the Malaysian public are stupid or technologically childlike.

And this makes me angry.

This makes me ashamed to be Malaysian.

And it has severely damaged any credibility the Malay race may have had.

The common goal for all Malaysian is to celebrate and be happy. If shooting “A Blind Mice” to the moon means a lot to our simple minded folks, then lets anticipate more funny,wasteful,happy things to do in our future soil.

Dear Yuen,

Lets laugh together with our neighbour. With lotsa money and resources, lets be happy, than serious. Serious is no good. Create tension and unhappiness!!

I was writing in (my perceived) context of this whole MALAISE shenanigan. I felt that this, and other grandiose displays (dropping idiots on to the north pole – they should have left out the parachutes) were expensive PR stunts to push Malays in the forefront.

This “mission” served to highlight an abhorrence to hard work and a lack of discipline – two qualities that are frequently attributed to us.

I thought it was amusing when the President of Khazakstan started referring to Malaysians as “Malays”. Probably a slip of his or the translators tongue..yet very appropriate.

There is a rabid insecurity and inferiority complex plagues us. It is this that infects us with the malaise of Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt, continues to manifest itself in the form of extreme religiosity and intolerance…and alpha position displays of chest beating.

Instead of building strong fundamentals with hard work, we take the short cut and applaud the superficial.

I rarely see this happening in the Malaysian Chinese, Indian and Dan Lain-lains.

Their accomplishments, for example Everest conquerers and our squash world beaters, have been gotten (and largely funded by themselves or their families) through sweat and dedication.

Vincent Tan, Lim Kok Wing or timber tycoon could easily have bought a seat from the Russians and shot one of their own bangsa in space. But they didn’t.

Rafil Elyas,i must admit,this post u created is lovely,n more than anything,u show u have got balls n also intellignece,unlike dumb,”redneck” malays in this country.our country need more of u n less of these rednecks malays.none of my friends know of the fact we pay the russians to send him to space.

no offence when i used the term redneck malays.im fully aware there r many redneck chinaman as well in this country.

The successful entrepreneur Chinese/Indian/Lain lain/and some Malay too as mentioned PHC deserved our respect as they succeed with minimal political assistance. But our so called cosmonaut, hmmm.. he worked hard too with a lot of assistant. Dont be an ass la, make our own glory semacam itu Nicole David.. Begging for the same mercy and special treatment is so plain lame. If we cant do it in this country, the world masih bulat what.. Air Asia pun sudah cakap, Everyone can fly.. hahaha..

Regards
Mikhail

p/s: im just tired and jaded begging for the same treatment. Serupa peminta sedekah jer!

The role of such wordsmith as of Rafil himself is a very crucial one. The goal is not to make change from a single column contribution for Rome, it was said, wasn’t built in one day. What is obligatory in a situation that we are in is a constant observation and criticism where it is deemed fit, so that those holding power would not abuse them without a whiff of objection.

I hope that Fafil’s writing could do what my writings definitely couldn’t; to create some awareness and providing the crucial alternative to the mainstream thoughts. What we need is not a unifying opinion to make progress, but a diversity of stance and position that encourages healthy debate.

I get what all of you try to mean but whether the opinion contribute to pessimism and more apathy or as opposed to a progressive thought for future changes should be the something that we judge ourselves carefully, before jumping to any conclusions that we decide we should hold.

Keep it up Rafil, there are just so many consumers in this age nowadays that we need producers from a savvy wordsmith like yourself. I’ve read your column at Off The Edge too, but it looks like one needs to have humongous amount of knowledge before being able to digest wholly what you are trying to say (It’s a compliment). Haha.

Me and all my friends
We’re all misunderstood
They say we stand for nothing and
There’s no way we ever could

Now we see everything that’s going wrong
With the world and those who lead it
We just feel like we don’t have the means
To rise above and beat it

So we keep waiting
Waiting on the world to change
We keep on waiting
Waiting on the world to change

It’s hard to beat the system
When we’re standing at a distance
So we keep waiting
Waiting on the world to change

Now if we had the power
To bring our neighbors home from war
They would have never missed a Christmas
No more ribbons on their door
And when you trust your television
What you get is what you got
Cause when they own the information, oh
They can bend it all they want

That’s why we’re waiting
Waiting on the world to change
We keep on waiting
Waiting on the world to change

It’s not that we don’t care,
We just know that the fight ain’t fair
So we keep on waiting
Waiting on the world to change

And we’re still waiting
Waiting on the world to change
We keep on waiting waiting on the world to change
One day our generation
Is gonna rule the population
So we keep on waiting
Waiting on the world to change

For the guy who believes I’m only bitching and not doing anything to advance science, technology and engineering – I am not a rocket scientist, but try to do my best.

In fact, if you have an advanced degree (MSc or PhD) in Chemical Engineering, strong foundations in theory, in particular thermo, heat transfer, fluid mechanics, reactions and practical design or operating experience in hydrocarbon production and processing, you may join me in my quest to tame and beat matter into submission.

I’m hiring now. Send in your resume to sales@east101.com – I’ll get you going on some good shit that’ll make this and the next space flight participant’s head spin. We are an equal opportunity employer, though Malaysian citizens are preferred.

hello there.

this is a zine, an archive, a blog, a calendar, a place where words, entities, pixs and happenings came to be chronicled, appraised, documented and consigned to history. gloriously. it's also a shop. was. but that may be an "is" yet again. meanwhile Joe is on his travels; updates may be irregular and minimal. enjoy your stay. terima kasih.